LVD was going to retire end of 2023 so even he knows he's not the All-Pro version LVD, but I mean at 34 he was 100 plus tackles and 6 (?) sacks. A few turnovers created. Made a couple stops in the playoff game too.
On top of that, as Bowles said before this season, LVD is like a coach on the field. Seen it all, knows it all. If he can mostly stay in close to the LOS, get everyone set, blitz, stop the run . . thats great.
I get Trask's point though about the on field role for SVD. The Bucs lose 5 of 6 or something when he goes down? Much more to that than SVD (much more), but anyone with eyes could see that last year opposing offenses exploited the Bucs inability to stop short quick passing game so expect teams to come right back to that until we stop it.
I would probably say
Mayfield
Wirfs (Barton)
Irving
(Reddick r Diaby/LVD/AWJ (ie pass rush or a key cog on the D)
Evans
Losing Evans would never be a good thing, great HOF player and TEAM LEADER. If we were to lose Evans early that would be really bad. Lose him for a couple games late, maybe not as bad assuming you have Egbuka in full stride and (hopefully) a healthy Godwin back and performing and maybe even McMillan and most importantly a running game in high gear. The Bucs probably get by because of their depth. Thats sort of the point of the Egbuka pick.
A lot of the Bucs OFFENSIVE success last season was that they put defenses in a no win scenario all the time and that started with the running game. Can the Bucs reproduce that same kind of running success now, with all the film out there, and early-on without Wirfs?
We are about to see. Might be a bit of a bumpy start.